There was a closet in my mom’s bathroom that was always locked.
My mom’s the woman who took me shopping every chance she got. The store was where she was happiest. That bond is one of the gifts of our relationship.
The locked closet was different.
It sat behind a freshly painted door with a brass keyhole I had to look up at. The door was big in my memory. She’d open it without a sound and come out with something. A lipstick. A small bottle. A sample case. I’d catch glimpses of what was in there before the door closed again.
Shelves of beauty knick knacks. Tubes of foundation in shades I couldn’t name. Eye shadow palettes stacked on top of each other. Blushes in compact mirrors. Sample kits ready to take to women’s houses for the parties she hosted on weeknights. Powders and brushes and tiny mirrors, all arranged the way a serious woman arranges a serious business.
My mother was the original beauty influencer, before that was a word.
In the eighties and nineties, when a woman with a pink suitcase could build a company out of her living room, she did. She hosted parties at other women’s kitchen tables. She taught them how to look at themselves in their own bathrooms with different eyes. She built a customer base, won prizes, drove cars she’d earned through what she’d sold. There was a generation of women like her. She was one of the good ones.
There was also a part of the closet I wasn’t supposed to know about.
Tucked behind the professional supplies were the surprises. Small wrapped things she’d been collecting for us. For a rainy day, for a good grade, for the kind of weekend a mother decides to make special on a whim. Tiny dolls, hair clips, packets of stickers, candy in foil wrappers. The closet was both a workshop and a love letter from her hands to her four children.
My 3 siblings and I weren’t going to let a small lock stop us.
We spent weekends hunting for that key. Under the rug in the hallway. In the corners of the linen closet. Up above the trim along the closet wall, where we had decided an adult might hide something they wanted out of reach. We tipped over baskets. We patted down jackets in coat pockets. We ran our hands along the undersides of drawers. We were professionals.
Then one day, we found it.
